


One Lucid Moment

by ExplodedPen



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-24
Updated: 2004-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExplodedPen/pseuds/ExplodedPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was that one lucid moment, that broke her heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Lucid Moment

**Author's Note:**

> At the time of writing this my grandmother was entering the final stages of alzheimer's disease. It's quite a personal subject for me and writing this...helped. This is for her.

She walks up to the door and presses the buzzer. A pleasant but tired voice automatically responds with: "Medowfields how can I help you?"

She states her name and purpose and waits. The door opens before her and she greets the nearby nurse by name. She's been a regular visitor for the past six months.

Somehow as she's lead to him by the nurse she knows this isn't going to be an easy visit, none of them ever are for every time she lays eyes on him she feels the onslaught of guilt and remembers the look on his face when she left him there for the first time.

He looks up as she nears him and for a second she swears she can still see recognition in his eyes but she reminds herself that this is just a delusion, the illness is robbing him of his memories and soon she will just be another person, another face that he doesn't recognise.

However he stands to greet her and she hugs him. He responds in kind, knowing that this is someone he must remember, she knows he is intuitive in this way, his training taught him that.

They sit down and the nurse leaves them, he talks to her like a friend because he knows that only friends visit him here, family too but their faces aren't easy to distinguish from friends and he figures it's safer to greet everyone as friends.

She continues the conversation with him but it's hard to follow, he's not making much sense talking randomly about different things, his lucid moments are becoming far less frequent and she knows that it's easier for him now. Before he would be constantly frustrated knowing he was forgetting things, faces, names and scared because when he tried to recall memories he couldn't find them. It's easier now he's forgotten that he forgets. Easier for him, but not for her.

She watches him now as he talks to her, he's recalling his time on Enterprise-a tour of duty that ended nearly forty years ago, he talks about her like she's not there how he felt during that time and how he wished he'd asked her to be his wife, not realising he did. The years are slowly being wiped away and she's nearly crying as he talks to her. This isn't the man she married, for like his memories Malcolm Reed is slowly being wiped away.

Silence falls between them for a few minutes, she makes excuses to leave a moment but when she returns he's disappeared and she sighs knowing he's forgotten she was here. She knows where to find him though; she walks through into the garden and sees him slowly walking down the path, his head turned slightly upward as if he's watching the sky for something.

She falls into step next to him and they walk along in silence till without warning he stops.

"I used to fly among the stars," he says.

"I know," she replies. "You use to blow them up too."

He laughs and then his expression sobers.

"I miss you," he says staring deep into her eyes. "And I love you."

Then he's back into his own little world and he's off talking about something else.

And it was that one lucid moment, that broke her heart.


End file.
